


Requiem

by Silver (snakejolras)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Inception, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi, a mad mess of inception and orwellian tones and god knows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakejolras/pseuds/Silver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2029 and war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and to dream is to do. One does not have thoughts against the government of Auctoritas empire, not even in their sleep, if they wish to stay "free". The moment you do you become the mark of a somniator, the trained dreamer of the regime, the one that creeps inside your own and eliminates you as a threat. There is no escape from your fate as a betrayer of the authority, or as such, there wasn't, until the Night Terror began as a whisper, a concept,  one began by the sominators themselves, using their man-given curses as a weapon against those that oppress the people. Night Terror is the resistance, and those of the empire should do their best to stay awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiem

**Auctoritas non veritas facit legem** \- - _Authority, not truth, makes law._

_  
_\- Thomas Hobbes, _Leviathan_

**In somnis veritas - -**   _In dreams, there is truth._

* * *

_  
_It is said in the Old Testament, after the days in which God made his flood which destroyed his own very creations save for two of each soul, that he would never again put upon the earth such a travesty or wrath. A citation that has been greatly relied upon in times of great strife, one that leaves out the well known and well grounded statement which escapes many in times of great, sudden faith. God, as all his creations within the universe, lies. The flood came again, not in water but in rage, and it poured throughout the world without a Noah as it's steer. World war could have been the name, did you feel it civilized enough to give it one, though most things as such don't deserve a title. The hate in the world clawing at it's own throat caused not a sudden flash followed by a piece, but a standing water after the drowning of most. Powers arose, tearing each other apart until those wishing no more than to survive joined to form one. Auctoritas. An empire built on greed and power and some misconstrued piece of superiority, one that saw itself suitable to control what was left of the world, blips of Europe and fragments of Asia, combining because there was little else to do but for those civilians that had found themselves survivors to join together.

Some called it Oceania in their corners, not daring to say what could easily be seen as anti-government in public, but the notion was there all the same. Auctoritas controlled everything, and their empire took it's construction in 2022, building massively over the past seven years into a technological regime the likes of which an imperialistic government has never seen. Many of the worlds resources had been damaged beyond repair, which left those in the field of science still among the living to find a new way to please their government, if they would like to stay among such. Gradually, biology and technology combined like a perfect equation, systems able for use within the human body and the human mind. The monitoring of thought began in 2024, something which was seen as a monumental occasion for those which supported the empire, and a massive nightmare for those who opposed it. Crime rates began to soar though "remarkably" criminals seemed to be hard to find once convicted of their thought crime. Soon there was an eye of the storm, a sudden drop in crime with the obvious aura of fear surrounding it, until 2025. Then, they began to monitor the subconscious, the unconscious. The dreamer. 

Of course, with crime rates soaring downward, the empire found that a sudden rise in arrests would be suspicious, they needed another way to stop those who dreamt of rebellion, and of their freedom. It wasn't short after, what with all the technological availability they contained, that they discovered the MindLink. A way to tap one subconscious into that of another, with almost full conscious control. That with the tap could speak to the dreamer as if they were right in front of them, and kill them as if they were. The last element, however, was their downfall. There was no control for the average individual who went under this process, something brand new, and many found themselves with complete neuro failure upon attempting it. The empire couldn't let their most loyal soldiers die, but they needed to perfect their process, they needed to train those to use the tap that they saw only as pawns. 

That's where Eponine came in.

She was one of the first, she and Grantaire, street rats of orphans that nobody would miss. They were also two among only five of the first batch which survived their training, clinging to it and the tap for their own survival, an ability that they both knew quite well. They became what the Somni branch of the empire considered to be among their best and brightest, though neither of them seemed to see that as a compliment. They were there because they had to be, because living a murderer was better than dying on the street. They became brother and sister to each other, the only thing they collectively cared about. It was that way two years, and then Eponine could feel Grantaire's gravity pulling away, grasping to gravitate around someone else. 

It was silly, to say the least. When they were there, you never really saw him. After training they'd always pull him somewhere else, a blonde streak gone in an instant, and he never really seemed to say a word. Eponine would just roll her eyes when Grantaire was staring, tell him not to look too hard are someone might notice the smell of something burning, or laughing quietly when he saw Grantaire and stared right back. That was the pattern for months, until one day he was just gone, he and a few others which neither of them had ever spoken to, and she didn't think much of it. Somni had a way of making people disappear if their performance was low, it was something that was acknowledged as a fact, but they never said a word, so neither did you. That was, to her, the end of it, until she finally had a night to sleep alone. In theory, anyway.

The first thing you found out as a somniator was that everyone has a base dream. It tells you a lot about an individual, what theirs is. Some people have blank, white rooms, and these people were throughly, incredibly dull. Some people had forests, an earthy wind that wished for freedom. Eponine, she had a castle. A beautiful, glossy foyer that was warm and well-furnished, a fire going on the far left of the room, flames crackling around the logs of it. This is where she went when she slept alone, and it was here she felt most at peace, most not in her own reality. She sat by the fire and took it in, took in the ability to relax, and to breathe. Grantaire's giggle from the right of the room caused the fire to nearly extinguish.

Eponine jumped up, staring at him before fading into a glare. "What the hell are you doing?" 

The other shrugged, glancing around. "Never been in here before. Shocking, when your best friend doesn't let you into her castle. And here I thought we were close."

_"Fuck you._ What do you want?"

"Oh, stop." Grantaire sighed, staring at the fire. "This was the safest place for me to talk to you."

Eponine raised a brow. "Why do you need a safe place to talk to me..." A pause, before her glare reappeared with only slightly less malice. "...what did you do?" 

"I didn't-- this is important, okay?"

The girl watched him for a moment before softening with a sigh, crossing her arms. "Then I'm all ears."

Grantaire nodded, looking down for a beat before looking at her again. "We're getting out of here."

Eponine stared. _"Excuse me?"_

* * *

As in any imperialistic society, an empire not only wishes to make it's mark through it's power, but through it's blood. A silly notion, and one often as deadly as the other intentions of those with too much control, a mistake leading to the path of that of boy kings and of bloody reigns of a child. For the Auctoritas empire, this mistake was made through their need for complete authoritarian reign, a control group in each sector, a method of making sure your name stays in every part of your kingdom. 

There is something to be said about a regime that will put their people through torture and fatality just to keep control over their thoughts, there is something even more to be said of those that will put their child through the same. 

They started him in 2027, same as their first batch, they just kept him secluded, perhaps a choice they would have been wise to keep with. He was an eighteen year old thrown into the sector by his own father's word with no reasoning, subjected to the same training, to the same pain, pushing past it by clawing at his own palms. He wasn't the only child of the royal to be offered, he was just the only one to survive. It was a game of chess one had to see all the pieces of early in order to stay in. A pawn among kings that think they are immovable. You go through the pain, you let your mind no longer be yours alone, and then you smile and act like you enjoy it. To keep them smiling, to keep them believing, because you're their source of belief. You are a deity in disguise and as long as you are aware of this, they have no power over you. This is what he learns, this is what he teaches when they all sleep alone, when he can, once he catches glimpse of them. Feuilly is the first one he meets this way, and they continue to communicate in their privacy, constructing their own subconscious maps that they know how to lock. When you understand a tab, you understand your own subconscious, and when that is possibly, you can lock away whatever you don't wish for someone to see. They both know this, and they keep their communication consciously silent even once they let him associate with the rest, temporarily. This only allowed them to recruit until their need to start hit it's brink.

He never mentions to any of them who he is, if that were to happen they'd no longer believe his need for rebellion. His name meant nothing, not to him, never to him, so he picks another, one that suits him more comfortably. He only gives the knowledge that he has more access to means of a way out of the sector, one that they can use to get outside of the empire's mainland as a whole. There is the four of them, he and Feuilly with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, and they get out a month after they make the plan to. There is a solid lock on each of their taps but taps are more easy to lock when several knowing minds have the combination, and four is plenty. Still, that doesn't stop him from wanting to get more out, for the sake of them being away from it. He remembers him, he remembers blue eyes staring intently at him and quickly soaring down once he looked back, and he decides to risk it by allowing his mind into the sector unlocked.

Grantaire's base was something of a curiosity, not close to anything he'd ever really seen before. It was a room, entirely black, almost as if the entire room was painted in chalkboard. There was paint in random places, chalk here and there, with no rhyme or reason they he could seem to make out to it. There was no real, immediate impression to be had, and it wasn't until Grantaire was staring at him that he was sure he had the right mind at all.

"...You." Grantaire's voice had a forced casual tone, with a brim of nervousness lying behind it waiting to surface. 

So he offered a small smile. "Me." He glanced around again before looking at him once more, taking a tentative step closer. "I know this is...instinctively uncomfortable. But I'm just here to talk, something I've been meaning to do. We haven't offically met. I'm Enjolras."

Grantaire nodded, still staring at him. "Okay, Enjolras. Grantaire. And why couldn't we have done this in the real world?"

"I'm no longer in the sector.  And I'd like to offer you a way out of it too, if you'd like it."

Grantaire raised a brow, watching him, relaxing only slightly. "And just what good would that do me? Death? Because I think I'm good on the death, I appreciate the offer though, you have fun with that."

Enjolras sighed, closing his eyes. "They can't kill you if they can't find you. And they can't." He opened his eyes, softer. "I can teach you, how to play with the lock."

There was a long pause, Grantaire looking him over, trying his judgment whether or not he was falling into a well constructed trap. He looked Enjolras in the eyes again before nodding. "And if I get out, what then? The empire owns everything besides the forest, that doesn't exactly give me any wild aspirations for freedom."

Enjolras gave a hint of a smile, shaking his head. "If they lose us, they lose their empire, and then there's plenty to aspire to. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, but there is still a chance."

"Well good, because I don't." Grantaire mumbled, staring down so not to look at the other man, focusing on a few of the more vibrant splatters on the floor. He thought of his life before, the desperation of it; he thought of Eponine, and the fact that she'd had double his own agony; he thought of the softness radiating off the man still watching him even when he was not truly there, and then he sighed, barely a whisper. "How do you play with the lock?"


End file.
